How King Edward IV Could Be Illegitimate | Britain's Real Monarch | Real Royalty With Foxy Games

where does the royal family live you might think it's here but you'd be wrong in fact they live here and their name certainly isn't Windsor I've made a startling discovery there's good evidence that's recently come to light the back in the Middle Ages one of the kings of England was illegitimate and if that's so it means that every king and queen of our country since shouldn't by rights have sat on the throne but if not them then who well I've traced the real royal family the bloodline that's been robbed of its inheritance and I've discovered the person alive today who should be Britain's reigning monarch this is how it happened [Music] what am i doing making a fuss about a centuries-old skeleton in the Royal Family's closet will to me it's all about the rules of the club the monarchy rests entirely on blood and inheritance there's an absolutely rigid system for passing on the throne Prince Charles is first in line then Prince William and Harry then Andrew etc the chain of power and wealth and privilege depends on two rules one you have to be of the royal bloodline and two you have to be born legitimate but what happens if the system goes wrong if the chain gets broken 500 years ago that's exactly what happened and this is the man responsible Edward the fourth was King but his claim to the throne was fatally flawed I found evidence that he was conceived not by his royal father but by a humble Archer it was the Summer of 1441 England was at war with France Edwards mother had gone there with her husband while he was away fighting she was rumoured to have had a fling with an English Archer based in the rule garrison nine months later Edward was born within 20 years Edward became Edward the fourth but gossip about his parentage persisted in his lifetime and even after his death [Music] there were rumors flashing around the Tudor Court that Edward was illegitimate and William Shakespeare actually articulates those rumors he says in which the third if I can find it when that my mother went with child of that insatiate Edward noble York my princely father then had was in France and by true computation at the time found that the issue was not his be God that's pretty clear isn't it but the gossip was just that there was no proof historians put it down to political mudslinging but then an English historian called Mike Jones started rooting around in the archives at wrong Cathedral and he discovered a document that for the first time provided facts to substantiate the rumors that Edward was a bastard when you came here what was it you're researching I was looking into the records of the Hundred Years War and you found this thing this register what is it it's a record of the cathedral chapter for the summer of 1441 what's so significant about the summer 1441 this is when Edward would have been conceived and what was it that you found did the Duke of York his father is not actually where he should be he's on campaigning Pontoise prayers being offered for his safety what is it it's first sermon a sermon is being preached for the safety of the Duke of York on campaign and Pontoise so they're worried that he's away at the very time when he was first debating his worth yes but couldn't the child have been premature very very unlikely a premature child would have been that would have been recorded no one had ever understood the significance of this information before you found it I couldn't quite believe it myself that something as scandalous and sensational as this could have really happened but this is really definite this is the original document the original document and it shows that at the crucial time from July through to August the crucial five weeks father is not Edward was born in late April 14 42 counting back 40 weeks earlier puts his conception right in the middle of the five-week absence of his supposed father now conception dates aren't an exact science but five weeks is a big gap infant mortality was very high sickle premature babies with a claim to the throne were a risk and chronic has always recorded them what's more this new evidence binds together other clues about Edwards birth which had previously been glossed over first the rule Cathedral records also tell us that Edwards christening was a hushed up affair in a side Chapel in contrast his younger brother at the whole of rural Cathedral opened up in celebration second the lantern-jawed Edward looked nothing like the thin faced man who was supposed to be his father and thirdly neutral sources tell us that his mother herself declared that Edward was a bastard even making a legal deposition she knew that the truth was vital to the integrity of the royal line so while it matter whether or not Edward the fourth was legitimate well if I stick this up here hopefully I can show you this line the top here is the great line of British Kings through from alfred the great 200 ii to Edward the 3rd but after Edward suddenly the whole thing explosion Bush because it's the War of the Roses and all the Kings start dying off like flies until in 1485 when Richard the third dies there are no claimants left except this one Henry the seventh and his claim comes through this line which is an extremely dodgy one because it's about the fact that John of Gaunt had a mistress Katharine and they had children and that line is specifically barred from inheriting the crown so in order to legitimize himself Henry the seventh married this woman Elizabeth of York and her claim is based on the fact that she is the daughter of Edward the fourth but if Edward the fourth is illegitimate then that invalidates the claim of Elizabeth and consequently of Henry and of Henry the 8th and of Elizabeth the first and of the Georges and a Victoria and everyone all the way down to the House of Windsor those few words in an ancient document had potentially seismic results and woodsey legitimacy removed a vital link from the royal chain I was about to contest British history as we know it I wasn't naive I knew it was impossible to be 100% certain about events that happened five hundred years ago but I wanted to make sure I had the balance of probability on my side and we're better to check 15th century facts than at the academic world's 15th century conference another Doctor of Divinity was exciting to holy different effects in the much-needed break I sounded out other opinions about Mike's theory I think there is it was sin to raise at the time fairly fairly close to tip to the time it's a dynasty that destroys itself if you start killing your brother and things of this sort there's something odd going on it's a very unstable time I think Andre to the fourth what is his research his fame though well done on this particular topic we're talking about an issue where everybody has said it's impossible to past it's nonsense it's rubbish and what Michael is done is he's shown it's feasible or plausible I also talked to Mike again who gave me one more plank of evidence this time from Edward himself Edward and his followers seem to have been suspiciously eager to tell the world that he was legitimate his own circle once the story gets out go to the opposite extreme to try and dampen it down but that's what's so fascinating so they're bringing out these wonderful eulogist - - Edward but they keep having to emphasize what should be obvious conceived in wedlock of the royal blood but he's on the throne methinks the lady doth protest him indeed as part of their desperate propaganda campaign and would supporters wanted to deflect attention away from roar so they named an alternative time and place for his perception respectable family residents at Hatfield Chase in Yorkshire before Cecily Neville even left for France but when we actually looked the the itinerary of Cecily and Richard we find they've traveled south by the beginning of June 1441 so this this consumption would have had to have taken place in May 1441 why is that a problem Edwards birth date is the 28th of April 14 42 11 was Gonzales his son pregnancy 11 months pregnancy so I've heard of trying to strengthen one's case but in the process they've shot himself in the foot in other words when Edwards supporters tried to counter the gossip about his illegitimate see they came up with a story that would have made him eight weeks overdue which modern science knows to be impossible I was ready to start the quest to find who should really be sitting on the throne of Britain today [Music] an ancient document in wrong Cathedral has shown that King Edward the fourth was illegitimate but you're only royalty if you're related to the right people so Edwards unfortunate beginnings means that every royal since has been unwittingly living a lie so if not Henry the eighth's good Queen best Queen Victoria of the present incumbent then who where should the royal line of god forget the history you know prepare to meet a Queen Margaret the first a King Henry the tenth and Queen Barbara the first but in tracing the rightful heirs to the throne I wanted to follow the established royal rules exactly as I'm no genealogist I decided to start at two breasts the acknowledged experts on inheritance and the aristocracy we we've been doing a lot of work on rich to the third and Edward the fourth and we've come to the conclusion the Edward the fourth definitely was illegitimate but I'm a bit stuck on working out where we should be looking for the Truman article line once that happened what would the rules here well I'll get to family tree and health this question the crucial point is that that the fourth was one of three brothers and wasn't just Edward the fourth and Richard the third there was a middle brother George Duke of Clarence who had children so his children actually would have taken precedence over Richard the third because here there's Edward the fool yet there's George Duke of Clarence George is two children were the last of the Plantagenet Edward Earl of Warwick who was a poor simple boy locked up in the tower where he died unmarried but this intriguing lady Margaret Countess of Salisbury was the very last of the Plantagenet and as such she was a threat to Henry the 8th and the Tudor line and Henry the eighth was determined to get rid of her quite late actually in his reign there was a trumped up charge of treason and she was done to death on the scaffold and she was complaining to the last breath in her body and did she have children yes she did she had quite a few sons and it's it's through this line again through the female line that we followed this this line of descent so I'd found my true Plantagenet heir the person who should have been on the throne I'm calling her Queen Margaret the first the Plantagenet claim was so strong that the Tudors made a concerted attempt to wipe them out Margaret and her sons were executed by Henry the eighth she's now officially a Catholic martyr [Music] but her descendants survived from Margaret I had to trace an alternative royal family [Music] she was the first step on the trail to find our real monic today and the trail made me north the power base of our rightful rulers was a world away from Windsor and Westminster in Ashe Padilla's Uche in Leicestershire why ashbey well it was the stronghold of the Hastings family Queen Margaret's granddaughter married into this family it was the offspring of this Hastings Plantagenet line that I had to follow [Music] everybody has a family everybody has roots and I began to uncover the sort of extraordinary personal stories that everyone finds when they explore their family tree the only difference was that the Hastings lived in a massive castle and but for an accident of history they would have been ruling the country [Music] by the time of Elizabeth the first the air to Ashby and therefore our alternative Plantagenet monarchy was Henry Hastings 3rd Earl of Huntington forget the bloke with the six wives this is the real Henry the eighth this Henry was no less vicious than his name sir Henry was known as the Puritan Earl up until now the Hastings Plantagenet had been staunch Catholics don't forget that Henry's great-grandmother Margaret had actually been a Catholic martyr but Henry instituted his own mini Reformation and started persecuting the Catholics zealously there's one story where he punished a housewife who'd been hiding a Catholic priest by laying her on the ground putting a door on top of her and then squashing her to death Henry was happy to serve the Tudor Queen he didn't know the rules have been broken but records show she was only too aware of his pedigree there's a lovely bit here that says that Queen Elizabeth became ill and she started worrying about the fact that she hadn't got an heir and someone said to her don't panic because Henry Earl of Huntingdon has got a legitimate claim and amazingly she immediately became better and that was the last time until I came along that there was any hint that the Hastings Plantagenet might actually have a claim to the throne for hundreds of years the royal family tree would weave its various branches through British history it would survive threats and crises but no one would look back at its roots and suggest the whole line of succession was fatally flawed eighty years on the Tudors had been succeeded by their cousins the Stewart's and the person wearing the crown was Charles the first when Charles slid to defeat an English Civil War Hastings Plantagenet stood by him to the end supporting the king custom their family seat here at Ashby which was slighted by cromwell's troops nowadays if we say we've been slighted we mean that someone's been a bit sarcastic to us and we feel vaguely miffed but in the 17th century slighting meant taking a building back to Ground Zero you can see what Cromwell's men did here they've completely blew up half the building this massive walls completely gone and the rest of it they left open to the elements it was an absolute loss of property and power and status [Music] on their behalf I was outraged at the irony that our Plantagenet family should have lost so much through sticking by the Royals who supplanted them but aristocracy has an uncanny knack of clawing its way back so I followed the alternative royal family down the centuries and across the country their depleted fortunes were restored ashbey was replaced by other magnificent family seats but then just as I was well on my way to finding a candidate for Britain's real monarch alive today I stumbled on a completely unexpected and dramatic clash between our alternative line and the monarch of the day the Hastings had taken on the title of Earl of Loudon this was their enormous castle in Scotland it was known as the Windsor of the north 365 rooms but building it emptied the family bank accounts it was the first year of the reign of Queen Victoria our real monarch at the time should have been George Lord Hastings the Earl of Loudon he had lots of titles plenty of castles but very little cash [Music] which meant that his sister the lady flora wasn't nearly as eligible as you'd expect an aristocrat to be and wasn't going to be able to marry into the nobility she'd have to get a job and she did she became a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Kent Queen Victoria's mother and that was the start of big trouble for the very first time our royal family hit headlines flora found herself right in the middle of a national scandal it wasn't her fault she was a victim of a family feud involving Queen Victoria Queen Victoria's mother who flora was lady-in-waiting to the man called Sir John Conroy who'd been acting as Victoria's unofficial stepfather since Victoria's real father died when she was 8 months old nowadays newspapers print gossip about royal sex lives at the drop of a hat in 1839 had to be much more circumspect nevertheless nothing could stop the gossip with that said John Conroy was far more than her mother's private secretary Victoria hated him for that she called him the monstrous devil incarnate which came to the throne she had two ambitions one was to get rid of all the immorality at the Regency period and the other was to get rid of Sir John Conroy and that is where flora comes in in 1838 flora traveled down from Scotland in a carriage with Sir John Conroy they were alone no chaperone there were rumours and when months later Flora's stomach started to swell gossip about a pregnancy became rife it was Victoria's perfect chance to get back at Conroy she banned flora from court and ordered her to have an intimate examination Victoria's high-handed attitude destroyed our Plantagenet princess's reputation it brought Victoria into direct conflict with Flora's brother our alternative monarch it's all here the examination proves that Flora's a virgin and is actually very ill George and his family and the whole nation are outraged by Victoria's treatment of poor flora listen to this from The Morning Post lady flora Hastings endures with patience and resignation the anguish of a wounded spirit a virtuous and amiable lady destroyed in the flower of her days are the slanders and the insults of court minions of course they couldn't actually criticize the Queen openly but everyone knew what the phrase caught minions really referred this incident ended the young Victoria's honeymoon period with the British public this is the dramatic moment in history when our alternative royal family dared to stand up to the person on the throne not only that but the people mobilised behind them crowds cheered and hissed Victoria eggs were thrown at her carriage this is big news this is the Watergate of its time imagine it when Princess died died in the car crash and the Queen's popularity was as its lowest no one actually took to the streets but here with this incident of the eggs you can see the level of public outrage but it got even worse because in the July flora died of liver cancer here's her obituary just their public now were a boiling point Queen Victoria could scarcely go out of the palace whereas flora was regarded as a victim some kind of martyr figure almost but what the newspapers can't show you is what was going on in private her brother George challenged Lord Melbourne who was the Queen's chief representative to a duel he couldn't challenge the Queen herself of course because she was a woman in other words here you've got our Plantagenet George the fourth going head-to-head with the chief representative of the heir to the Tudor throne in the event the duel never took place but the tragedy was neither forgiven nor forgotten by the Hastings family they issued their own stamps in her memory flora was buried in State at Loudon the Union flag was never flown again over the castle the publicity about flora made my research easier but later on in Victoria's reign our alternative royal family were hit by a massive change in their fortunes in a dramatic twist of fate the noble Plantagenet were torn off their pedestal it was an event that totally transformed my search for the person who should be on the throne today this was the man responsible henry ways furred Charles Plantagenet Gordon Hastings he was frankly a bounder he even stole his friend's fiancee but he had only one real love in his life Henry was married to the track as soon as he came of age he started to run horses and bet heavily [Music] can have our tennis win alterna number seven ten pills if I wanted to make a really big bet here would you take it it depends our bigger bet you're talking about really five naff whether you might struggle certainly in a group would anyway I've never heard of anyone having to asking for a bit bigger than a million pound but there was a somebody asked for a million pound bit last year what would you think of someone put five and half they've got too much money or they're just trying to get rid of some for somebody else well that's exactly what Henry Hastings did he'd already spent virtually all of the family fortune about a hundred million pounds in today's money he just got 120,000 pounds left us five and a half million today and he put it all on one horse in one race to win it was the 22nd of May 1867 the Derby Henry had backed the odds on favorite Verdun [Music] a rank outsider called the hermit started the game round with every step he got closer [Music] [Applause] the Hermit won by a neck the sport of kings had destroyed our King Henry the 10th by the age of 25 our Henry the 10th had fretted away the family fortune running up millions of pounds of debts he got another name the king of the plungers a year later his liver gave out on his death the family were forced to auction wines art in the family estates to pay his creditors moutain Castle today is a shell overlooking a theme park complete with rides and wallabies to attract the masses [Music] suddenly our alternative line had run slap-bang into the real world i realized that the real king or queen today probably wasn't some tough living in a stately home but an ordinary person in a normal house as i traced the last few generations i found the truth from the 20th century there were more names and faces tragic deaths in both world wars that meant we should have had both a queen edith and until last year between barbara the first and then suddenly i was there i couldn't quite believe it but i had a name and an address for the person who should be ruling britain today in 1960 when the present occupant of buckingham palace was still in the first decade of her reign a young man set sail from England he was heading for a new life abroad he didn't know it but he was leaving his kingdom behind [Music] after discovering a floor in the royal succession I traced the line of true kings and queens that leads to the person who's Britain's real monarch but he'd emigrated the true heir to the throne was born in Britain but now lives in the Australian outback his name is michael hastings armed only with my family tree and my increasing obsession with the subject i went to tell the man who should be king michael the first the good news as I drove into Gerald to renew South Wales population 1100 plus one King I began to realize how daft this might look I knew he was in town had phoned him from Britain and told him we were looking into the descendants of the Plantagenet but otherwise King Michael was in the dark [Music] [Applause] seventy-four 12000 miles two and a half days and a lot of jet lag and I'm finally here to be honest I'm not quite sure how to play this I mean if someone turned up on your doorstep and said excuse me do you know that you're the King of England you'd be surprised wouldn't you particularly if they had a director with them and a soundman a cameraman so I think what I'll do is I just talk to about some of the facts first of all relax him a bit and then hit him with the real import of what we've got to say at the end [Applause] good eye hello I'm Tony Robinson this is that camera come on come on you thank you but you walk for England Michael the reason that we've come over is that we've been doing a lot of research on the Plantagenet of which you are one yes I'm very distant Mary just look at the top it see the kings of England starting with Henry the second and firm right - William the conquering beyond that - Alfred great was I went over the now-familiar patent Wars of the Roses Clarence Henry Tudor and of course the missing link in the Royal chain all of that's okay except that we now believe that Edward the fourth was in Selfridges would you do which means the Elizabeth was illegitimate Henry the seventh was of the illegitimate anyway so this whole Tudor dynasty is built on a lie hmm it means that you are the rightful king of England yeah how do you feel well but you knew you were a Plantagenet well I guess I just so don't you will you go back so far yeah somewhere along the line you're a fantastic you know but I didn't think it would work oh well I didn't know anything about this this will get a messy [ __ ] yeah it turned out that Michael also had a family tree he wanted to check my research which luckily seem to match completely 1729 to 1789 and then he say rule this Margaret the Martin lady flora out gambling Henry the tenses as well as Michaels nearer relatives she'd have been Edith the first twelve counties yeah then there's my great-grand that's your great-grandmother mother strictly speaking Michael isn't mr. Hastings he's a peer of the realm he won't know yourself oh yes what well I came over here in 1960 and I inherited at that stage I was Lord Northland because my mother was still alive yeah she had the title then last October she died I was he in England at the time and she died yeah and I inherited her title and then my oldest son Nero did mine so if you're an English Lord what are you doing over here I love you Tony I came over here when I was 17 1960 and I just love it over I married it I have five children five grandchildren and a wonderful life but what Michael hadn't tweaked was that as king of the United Kingdom he'd also have the remnants of an empire including Australia they're looking for a new governor-general moment it's quite serious in a way though isn't it well it is really it depends if well it depends how seriously you'd take it you see I believe that Australia should be a republic I'm not a man monarchist so in the referendum how did you vote for a republic so you'd have been voting against yourself well I might've voted different two of Michael's daughters also live in Georgia real princess Rebecca and princess Mandy with the young Prince Riley their father [Laughter] [Music] this is real stuff this is real true there's only one way to guarantee the facts and that is by DNA would you be prepared to let us have a little piece of your hair run and make sure that this is true [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] goodness wait what is taken from in my naivety I thought you could get DNA from any old hair actually you need the roots hand gloves but they human me so there I was after half an hour messing about with people whose blood gave them more right to the Thrones and starchy old Prince Charles that's royal hair so we got Prince Caleb and one of the other children Isabella get princess Prince Prince Jett he's the card and that prince and princess so up until that moment my quest had been a bit of a game but meeting Michael I really liked the sheer normality of his life that was actually rather touched by his bluff republicanism I began seriously to think about not only what he'd lost but also what he'd gained by not being king of Britain [Music] not foul moral not Sandringham Windsor but Gerald Dorrie in Australia home to Britain's real Monica because if you think this is the royal family think again according to my calculations this should be King Michael the first and his family include Simon the alternative Prince of Wales Marcus Lisa princes jet Zach Caleb and Riley not forgetting little princess Isabella Queen Elizabeth the second day is planned minute by minute including a piper who plays at nine o'clock after the Royal breakfast she spends her time going through the royal rituals pressing the flesh with ambassadors or aging celebrities anyone who needs the boost of pomp and circumstance Michael's day begins at 7:30 when he sets out on a half hour drive to work [Music] he works at the Australian Rice Research Institute it's an enormous farm where Michael and two mates are engaged on an ongoing quest to find a sort of rice suitable for the parched landscape to feed Australia and Southeast Asia yeah I don't know little eyes that we got left - Matt no I might time work yet what's in there being one of the interesting things about our Plantagenet King is that he started off as a standard British public school boy with the title but something in his character transformed him into a regular Aussie bloke who'd vote to get rid of the monarchy like Prince Harry Michael came to Australia to do some jockey ruing in a sort of gap year but his temporary stay became permanent I have to come to other jobs I joined a company called Denny's Lascelles they were stock and station agency at stock and station agency over here there's a combination of kind of buying and selling properties and sheep and cattle and all that kind of thing and they sent me to ildren that's how I started in jewelry and that was in 1966 it's a very small town what's in it for you the casualness friendship the lifestyle that's the bit I like after only a couple of days in the bush I could see what attracted our real king to the tough but uncomplicated Australian lifestyle [Music] but as soon as you start getting into the swing there's always someone happy to point out that you're still at home [Music] forty years old I'm still a pom or that pommy bastard you know one of the other yeah oh yes well let that's that's typical Australian that yeah oh yes you know I don't think I'll ever come about it doesn't rank oh no not at all not at all [Music] I spent more time with Michael at work and off-duty he showed me the sights of Gerald Dorrie to be frank I'm a city person had have gone mad here after more than a week but at the same time I envied him compared with the dysfunctional of Windsor's our Plantagenet monarch lives right at the heart of a close-knit family and community whatever the gags and put-downs it seems to me that he'd made a life for himself out here it was far better than any that he could've hired as king of Britain my wife had red hair she was fairly fiery I think I was not quite 21 when I met Noel and I was 26 when we got married and she probably thought well can i really marry a Tommy what do you think no lean an all Australian girl would have said if she'd know that she was really the Queen of England I see she would have probably said get me another stubby Michael I think I'm gonna need it if the Queen abdicated if she said I've had enough of it would you go back probably not probably not and I couldn't blame him but I still wondered what Britain would have been like if our alternative history had happened we wouldn't have had Henry the eighth so Britain might still be a Catholic country like Ireland and Britain was only formed because James the sickness of Scotland became James the first of England as well so there'd be an independent Scotland with its own King and what about our current ones well we've never had the House of Hanover either so maybe just maybe somewhere in Germany today very ordinary and elderly lady who may or may not be called Elizabeth goes to buy a few slices of breakfast bling duck [Music] in down Kisha thank you it is it [Music] I've got the answer to the question I was asking myself and now know who should be ruling Britain in another reality except of course in real life things are just as they are King Michael's far too happy down under to think about storming across the seas to occupy Britain and seize Buckingham Palace so if that's the case what was the purpose of the whole exercise well for me I really understand something now about the nature of history itself it's fragile it's accidental for instance this is Ashby de la Zoosh castle it's the epitome of the kind of power that the Hastings had when they were at the height of their dominance it's strong it's big it's confident whereas over there is the little house where Michaels mother lived for most of her life it's unassuming its modest its normal just like Michael himself a million miles away from all the trappings of monarchy which reminds me of the medieval notion of The Wheel of Fortune where some people rise up while others a cast down below and that makes me think of the whole career path of the Plantagenet family what would have happened if people had cottoned on to the fact that Edward was a bastard much earlier or if Henry Hastings horse had come in first not second we tend to think nowadays of the monarchy as such a solid institution whereas in fact wealth and privilege and power and status just hang by a thread there's no such thing as the Divine Right of Kings [Music] because we haven't even started to talk about the enormous power Scotty yeah well that's right they'd find a lot of that power has been taken winter it's still summer and fancy knighting wood oh I see why not yeah what would you like you better look around

Channel: Real Royalty

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Id: Euc1JskB7Uo

Length: 47min 51sec (2871 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2019